She went back to the desk, snatched a doughnut from the box then winced at the stale taste.Ugh.She spat it into a tissue then deposited it all in the trash.Life was too short for stale doughnuts.
“Hey, Gen,” Cindy looked up from the computer, “we’ve got an ambulance pulling in and we’ll need you in trauma room four.Dr.Singh is elbow deep on a trauma patient in room three so we need you in four.Okay?”
“Okay.”Trauma room four was toward the back of the emergency department, past the curtained bays for examinations or less serious cases, in a section for those patients needing more privacy.As the emergency physician, Dr.Singh would normally take the VIP cases, so this would be interesting.
“Oh, and you might want to deal with this.”Cindy gestured to her chest.
Gen glanced down and sighed at the blood spatter adorning her scrubs.
She hurried to the doctors’ lounge and changed, then retrieved her white lab coat, knowing it instantly added credibility and professionalism to those who might otherwise like to question her youthful looks.She buttoned it, then adjusted the name tag, and quickly redid her long ponytail as she moved to where a gurney was pulling in, a couple of gray tracksuit-clad men accompanying the paramedics.
“Hello, I’m Dr.Rivas.What do we have here?”
“Male, twenty-nine,” the paramedic said, “hurt in a hockey game.”
Hockey?
Her heart stuttered.But no.The chances were negligible.Next to nil.
“We think it’s his ribs,” one of the gray men said.
She glanced at the patient whose hands covered his eyes, revealing just the bristled lower portion of his face.“Hey, you’re in safe hands here.You’re gonna be okay.”
He removed his fingers, and she froze, as eyes the color of Puget Sound in winter slammed into her.
No.No, no.
“Genevieve?”
What on earth?It was like her worst nightmare come to life.Kyle Tinker might be in safe hands, but she was one hundred percent certain neither of them were going to be okay.
CHAPTER2
“Genevieve?”Kyle repeated, as the face that haunted his dreams stared at him.“Wh-what are you doing here?”
“Take a deep breath for me.”She averted her face as he obeyed, frowning while she used the cold stethoscope.A nurse fussed with hooking him up to a machine to take his blood pressure and temperature.
“Do you have any medical problems?”the nurse asked.
“No.”
“Drink alcohol every day?”
“No.”
“Do you do drugs?”
“No.”
“Any surgeries prior to this?”
“Still no.”
“You two know each other?”Gerry murmured, as Gen studied his midsection which Gerry had helpfully uncovered.
“From a long time ago,” Kyle muttered.
Gen’s lips clamped—had she gotten prettier over the years?—and he could’ve sworn she was thinkingNot long enough.
